Tag: Presidential Election

When you first ran for President, in 2008, I didn’t think that you were the best candidate to be the first female President of the United States of America. As a woman myself, I felt that the fact that you had first achieved national prominence as First Lady was compromising; I wanted our first female President to be uncontaminated by her husband’s status.

I also had a notion that the Clintons were beset by scandals, and that they must certainly be to blame for that, at least in part. I suppose I hoped that the first female President would be covered in glory and uncomplicated, and I believed that the nation would allow such a person to exist.

I was wrong – I was naive.

I didn’t anticipate how the first serious woman candidate for President would be treated. I didn’t anticipate the intensity of the hostility to her, the demeaning and vile things that would be said about her, the contempt with which she and her accomplishments would be treated. I believed the world was better than it has proven to be .

I’ve been shocked and hurt by the things that have been said about and to you, by the incoherence people have been willing to entertain in order to vilify you. I was shocked, but, somehow, I don’t think you were. I believe you knew exactly what awaited you, what you were in for, and you ran anyway.

I am not so naive to think you were unmotivated by personal ambition – that would be absurd. No one reaches for the presidency without ambition.

But I also believe that you sought the presidency for our sake, for the sake of all the women of this country, who have never seen one of ourselves hold that office and who, before you, have never had a reasonable hope of doing so.

There is going to be a great deal written and said about the ways in which you were the wrong candidate. It is going to be asked whether you were destined to lose, whether your inherent political and electoral weaknesses allowed Trump to win. And so I just wanted to say to say to you, as one woman to another:

I’m glad it was you.

I think it had to be you: there aren’t many people strong enough to be bear hate and then smile – there aren’t many people brave enough to let the wave break on their back. You did that for us, and the fact that you didn’t win doesn’t mean that you didn’t do it well.

I’m sorry for how you were treated. I’m glad that you ran – thank you for running.